ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, October 28, 1996 TAG: 9610280089
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: BUCHANAN
SOURCE: JOANNE POINDEXTER STAFF WRITER
AN AMERICAN INDIAN village, probably inhabited by ancestors of the Totera Indians, has yielded artifacts such as shells and a broken deer leg so far.
The tiny shells indicate that the American Indians who settled here ate a lot of snail and mussel broths in addition to fish.
They also scraped the marrow from deer bones and made a broth from it.
At least, that's what an archaeological team is determining from its dig of about 5,100 square feet on property off U.S. 11 owned by Virginia Forge Co., which is building a new plant nearby.
The company is routing a drainage ditch for the new plant around the village site to preserve it.
A fish bone, a broken deer leg, lots of mussel and snail shells, and an adze - a woodworking tool - are among the artifacts archaeologist Tom Klatka and nine volunteers uncovered Sunday.
Since Tuesday, they have uncovered pieces of ceramics, animal bones and tools in refuse, cooking and storage pits that tell them how a tribe, believed to be ancestors of the Totera Indians, ate and lived between 1000 and 1600.
Klatka hopes analysis of the artifacts will help narrow that time span.
Mounds from dirt trenches outline what is believed to have been the village, near the south bank of Looney Mill Creek. Tests were first conducted on the site in 1965, but no excavation was done. Sixteen years later, Dan Vogt, a member of the Roanoke Chapter of the Archeology Society of Virginia, discovered a dark ring in the soil indicating where the village stood.
Klatka, who works with the Roanoke office of the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, used this information to determine where to dig and to get a $1,000 state grant for equipment and supplies.
From the air, he said, the site looked like a big doughnut - light soil in the center and dark on the outside, indicating houses and refuse and storage pits.
The excavation team, which includes educators, an insurance broker, a skycap and a paralegal, has been able to determine where posts for house frames and racks for drying skins stood. The houses apparently were in a circle, and the center was the plaza where the villagers gathered for ceremonies or meetings.
Klatka said the team is not going to uncover the entire village, where 75 to 200 people may have lived. Typically, though, when the houses began to deteriorate and the crops were not plentiful, the people moved to another site up-or downstream, he said. Studies indicate they relocated about every 30 years.
Some of the artifacts found here are similar to those found during a dig at Moyer Stadium in Salem, leading Klatka to believe these Indians were ancestors of the Totera, whose remains have been found in the Roanoke Valley and Franklin County areas.
It might be a year to 18 months before Klatka will have a final report on the dig. Virginia Forge owns the artifacts but is letting the historic resources office analyze and sort them. Klatka will apply for more funds for the work, which could include assistance from college students, and then will send some of the artifacts to specialists.
Liz Paull and Ferri Lockhart, two teachers, discovered a fish bone Sunday. Even though they couldn't determine the type of fish, they said they knew a specialist who could.
They knew the bone wasn't from a bass, because bass were brought to the area later. They speculated it could have been a catfish or sunfish.
Sunday's dig also attracted a couple of 9-year-olds. Laura Hammett of Blacksburg was on her first dig. Her friend, Melly Jacobs, whose father was volunteering, asked her to come help find arrowheads.
Melly found an arrowhead in her back yard, and that spurred her interest in excavations. Now, she said, stooping down and scraping the soil, "I want to be an archaeologist when I grow up."
LENGTH: Medium: 78 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ERIC BRADY/Staff. 1. Mary Vogt, with the Archeologicalby CNBSociety of Virginia, sifts dirt from the Buchanan dig site and finds
small fragments in the soil. color. 2. Participants in the
archaeological dig site on Sunday included (from left Tom Klatka,
Melly and Steve Jacobs, Laura Hammett, Liz Paull and Mark Martin.